


you belong with me (not swallowed in the sea)

by HowCleverOfYou



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Amnesia, Canonically blind character, Drug Use, M/M, mentions of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowCleverOfYou/pseuds/HowCleverOfYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas is dating one of London’s most notorious drug lords - he’s not supposed to take blind guys to the hospital and then accidentally fall in love with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you belong with me (not swallowed in the sea)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crocodilepatronus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodilepatronus/gifts).



> Happy birthday croc!

Thomas takes off out of the shop, stolen cigarettes gripped tightly in his hand. The owner’s son comes chasing after him, shouting in Arabic or some other language Thomas doesn’t understand. He tears off down the street, keeping his legs pumping. It’s not until they reach the heart of the city that he starts to zig zag in and out of the side streets and alleyways. Finally, Thomas finds a corner the boy is slow in turning and ducks into an abandoned building. There’s a group of men ahead, running like bats out of hell, and Thomas hopes the owner’s son will follow them instead

Sure enough, he hears the boy run past, feet slapping the concrete ground, and lets out a sigh, relaxing back into the wall behind him. The blood pounds hard in his ears and he tries to hear around it, any other sign that he’s about to get caught. He hears footsteps again a moment later, quieter; the boy retracing his steps.

They fade, though, as the boy walks away, and Thomas has to bite back a sound of triumph. He’s about to head back to Philip’s flat when he hears a noise – deep, body-wracking sobs coming from somewhere in the building. He follows it out of curiosity, hoping he’s not falling into one of those rapist traps where they use emotions to drag someone in.

There’s a man huddled up in the far corner next to a stack of old mattresses. His arm is locked up over his head and he’s weeping into his knees. Thomas approaches, slow, and says, “Hey, mate. You all right?”

The man startles violently, accidentally unraveling himself and banging his head back on the wall. His face is red and wet and he’s got a long, thin nose, but that’s the most Thomas can make out under the blood.

“Fuck,” he says, dropping to his knees and trying to pry the man’s hands away from his face. “Are you okay?”

“No,” the man cries, fighting for a moment before letting Thomas get a good look at his face. His eyes are bloody and swollen, and there’s a deep gash on one cheek that’s draining blood down his chin. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t _see_.”

“Let’s get you up,” Thomas says. He isn’t about to leave this guy to bleed to death in a musty, abandoned building. He puts the stolen pack of cigarettes into his pocket and reaches out to help, but ends up getting a handful of blood when he accidentally puts his fingers on another wound. It’s on the back of his head and the blood is thick and sluggish and Thomas grimaces, wiping his hand off on his jeans.

The man continues to cry as Thomas helps him limp out of the building and into the alleyway, where they stand waiting on the sidewalk for a cab to drive by. Thomas doesn’t have the pocket money, but he does have Philip’s black card tucked into his sock for safekeeping. If Philip has a problem with Thomas taking a cab in the middle of the city, Thomas will definitely hear about it.

The cab driver looks a little bit panicked when he sees the state that the man is in, but the fear only makes him drive faster towards the hospital. Thomas tries to inspect his face as much as possible, but he doesn’t have any water to wash away the blood and he sure as hell isn’t going to use his shirt – it was fucking expensive, first of all, and besides, it’s his favorite.

He pulls a piece of glass from his cheek and ignores the man’s whimpering. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t,” the man says, and starts to cry again. Thomas wishes he would stop with that. He reaches around and pats down the man’s sides, looking for his wallet or something else that could give him a hint. The man jumps uncomfortably when Thomas’ hands are on him, but Thomas only shoots him a look.

The driver pulls up to the A&E and Thomas hands him the black card to swipe, which the driver stares at wide-eyed for a moment. Then they’re out on the sidewalk, Thomas half-dragging the man through the sliding glass doors and into the cool, air-conditioned lobby.

The A&E is less crowded than Thomas has even seen it, but even if it had been, he would have pulled forward and demand to be seen first. Even so, the nurse looks at the man in horror and promptly calls for someone to take him back.

Thomas stays out in the waiting room while they poke and prod at the poor bloke. He keeps going to get up like he’s about to leave, but then sits back down. He may be the biggest asshole in London (aside from Philip, who need always wear that crown), but he isn’t going to pick some bloody guy off the side of the road and then just drop him at the hospital. He at least had to know the guy wasn’t going to _die_ , had to know his efforts were for _something_.

He’s there for a minimum of three hours, stretched out lazily across from some weeping girl who keeps sobbing “William” into her phone. A while later, a large woman waddles in through the front doors and sweeps away the crying girl, off to somewhere Thomas doesn’t know and also doesn’t care about.

The whole time, he’s thinking about slipping off to the bathroom to get high – he’s got a little bag of cocaine in his sock, right next to the black card; for safe keeping – but stays put. There are two policemen walking around and he doesn’t think Philip would appreciate his getting arrested.

Finally, a nurse emerges and fills him in on what’s going on. They don’t know a lot for absolute certain, but it looks like he was beaten (which, okay, fucking come on, Thomas could have told them that), but they don’t know why or by whom. He has extensive bruising _everywhere_ , where they think that his attackers kicked and punched him, as well as a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist. He has amnesia, but they have high hopes that it is temporary.

She rests his hand on his bicep in what he suspects is supposed to be a comforting manner when she drops the last bomb (and who does she think Thomas is, fuck this): the eyes sustained a lot of damage and they don’t think he’s ever going to be able to see again.

She looks like she expects Thomas to start crying or to get angry or have some sort of reaction, but he just shrugs. “Okay. He’s going to live, though, right?”

“Yes,” she says, and he turns towards the door, because that’s all he’d wasted three plus hours to hear. Before he reaches the doors, though, she yells, “Wait!” and catches up with him. “You’re just going to leave him here?”

Thomas blinks down at her. She’s a little bit shorter than he is, but her shoulders are set and she doesn’t look at all like she relies on her pretty face to get by. He’s almost afraid that she’s going to punch him, but then he remembers that he is the live-in boyfriend of one of London’s biggest drug lords and has been beaten up many times by both men _and_ women that were a great deal more frightening than her.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ve got a boyfriend at home; he’s not going to like me bringing strangers in.” Okay, partially a lie, because Philip is in Amsterdam for another month working a deal. He still wouldn’t be happy to find Thomas bringing in strays, though.

“You found this man bleeding on the side of the road,” she said, and now that she points that out, isn’t she supposed to be thanking him for bringing him here in the first place? “You obviously have a little bit of concern for his well-being or else you would have already left. I promise you, it will be in his best interest if you don’t leave him here. You wouldn’t want his first responsibility upon getting his memory back to be the stack of hospital bills that’ll surely be waiting for him. Plus, now that he’s blind, he’s going to have to figure out how to take care of himself, isn’t he.”

It isn’t a question and her blue eyes are boring into his face. She’s probably going to knee him in the crotch if he turns and runs – she looks agile; she’ll probably get him before he gets too far. He glances down at her legs and thinks it would really fucking hurt if she put him in a scissor hold.

“Fine,” he relents finally, and suddenly the demonic glare she had pinned on him transforms into the smile of an angel. He hates her a little bit but also loves her and wonders vaguely if she’d accept a job as one of Philip’s deal makers. She would be really fucking good at it. “Are there papers I need to sign?”

There are, of course, and Nurse Sybil smiles at him happily the whole time he fills them out. Then she stands with him while they wait for it to process, then while they wait for the man to be wheeled out.

“So what do I call him?” Thomas asks.

“We’re just referring to him as Joe Bloggs for now,” she says. “It’s rather impersonal, but there’s not much else we can do. He had no identification, no nothing. I suppose you could ask him what he’d like to be called.”

The doors open and the man is wheeled out, bandaged heavily and somewhat sedated. Thomas steps forward and says, “I suppose introductions are to be made. I’m Thomas.”

The man smiles humorlessly and Thomas imagines it’s from the pain meds. “I don’t know who I am,” he says, and begins to laugh.

“If you need anything, just give us a shout,” Nurse Sybil says, then disappears, leaving Thomas and the nameless laughing man alone.

Thomas helps him up and out of the chair – he would have stolen it had the other nurse not been waiting to take it back – and out onto one of the benches outside.

“We need a cab,” he says, then, “What do I call you?”

“Fuck me if I know,” he says. “I had to talk to the police and they had no fucking clue either.”

“What do you _want_ me to call you?” Thomas puts his mobile to his ear and waits for the cab service to pick up.

“I don’t know. Pick a name. I could be a Matthew or a William for all I know.”

Thomas pauses, thinking back to those women in the waiting room. He wonders if maybe this _is_ William, if maybe he had been lost. Maybe they were the ones who were worried about him. He’s lost in thought when someone picks up on the other end of the phone.

“Yes,” he says abruptly. “I need a cab.”

-

He starts calling the man BAM – Blind, Amnesiac Man; Bloody and Mangled – and clears some of the crap out of the guest bedroom. It’s mostly drug paraphernalia, he’s not going to lie, and he’s glad that BAM can’t see any of it worth a damn.

Philip’s flat is a penthouse suite, of course, with a Jacuzzi on the balcony and a massive kitchen (which they use mostly because the granite is nice to snort off of). The floors are wood and the beds are kings and the showers are massive. There is also a lot of wasted space, but that only makes it look simplistic.

(Thomas doesn’t think there is one thing in the entire flat that is his and only his.)

BAM goes into the bedroom as soon as Thomas is done clearing it out and lays down on the bed, supporting his broken wrist (in a bright blue cast) on his stomach. His bandaged face is turned towards the ceiling, but Thomas knows he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway without the cotton obscuring his eyes.

Thomas doesn’t usually spend a lot of time in the flat, mostly because there’s nothing to do except watch the telly. He does take the opportunity of being alone to empty the rest of his bag on the counter, though. The granite is cool against his wrist and he coughs a little bit when he inhales wrong.

Then he settles down on the couch and flicks on the set, leaving it on whatever channel it was last programmed to and closes his eyes.

BAM starts crying again while Thomas is riding his high, so it’s not until he feels the effects of the drug wearing off does he stumble into the guest bedroom.

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaving heavily against the doorframe. He feels good.

“Fuck off,” BAM replies tightly, and Thomas does.

-

It takes three days for BAM to finally come out of his shell a little bit. Thomas doesn’t know how to cook – he usually eats out, and when Philip is in town they eat in bed – so he orders takeaway and makes shitty grocery pizzas in the oven and leaves a plate on the corner of BAM’s bed, hoping that maybe he’ll eat something. He’s taking pain medication every few hours and Thomas knows from personal experience that it’s best taken with a full stomach.

As far as he knows, BAM doesn’t ever get up to go to the loo, so when Thomas barges in every night at five to change the bandages, he forces BAM up and into the toilet, where he tells him that he needs to piss and shower. He tries not to watch BAM undress or redress, but he finds his eyes drifting across the purple bruising all over his body.

BAM isn’t anything special, not supermodel pretty or prostitute sexy. He has long, thin legs and a long, thin nose and curly brown hair. He looks like someone who would have a nine-to-five, all picket fences and wife with permed hair and two point five kids. He is a regular Joe Bloggs and Thomas wonders what he’s going to say when he finds out he’s been taken in by the boyfriend of a drug lord.

On the fourth day BAM is in the flat, he guides himself out of the bedroom and says, “I got a bicycle for my fifth birthday.”

Thomas gets up and leads him over to the couch. He’s still pretty high but he tries to focus on what BAM is saying.

“It was red. My dad put it in the living room so when I came downstairs in the morning, I would see it.”

Thomas doesn’t remember what he got for his fifth birthday. Or, more accurately, he probably got nothing. Maybe a bit of a shove instead of a slap, but sometimes his dad was charitable.

BAM doesn’t remember much else, so Thomas cuts up some fruit that appears in the fridge (he’s pretty sure Philip has somebody deliver groceries for them because he’s never once been out of what he needs or wants) and they sit on the couch and watch television for the night.

Thomas keeps looking over at BAM, who is huddled up next to him. His eyes are still bad, oozing and swollen and nothing at all that Thomas wants to clean. But he’d been there before, been banged up and ugly with nobody to care for him, so he thinks he could be the person he’d always wanted to look after him, even if his bedside manner is a little rusty.

At five, Thomas slaps BAM’s thigh (and BAM cringes because he’s bruised there; he’s bruised everywhere) and pulls him off the couch to go get cleaned up. He sits on the toilet while BAM showers, then carefully washes away the new blood and ooze with a cotton ball. He has BAM sit on the bed when he does this so Thomas can stand over him.

Thomas wonders what BAM would say if Thomas were to lean down and meld their mouths together. He wondered if BAM would let Thomas touch him, mindful of all of the bruising, and touch Thomas in return. The thrill of having somebody in Philip’s flat was almost too much.

He doesn’t do anything, though, just closes the door behind him when he leaves the room. He gets high again, orders some Chinese, and eats Lo Mein with BAM, both of them sitting on the guest room bed cross-legged.

-

BAM is a nice guy, even though he’s scared and angry, and Thomas wonders why BAM continually seeks out his company. Thomas is not nice in any way; he’s cruel and mean and realizes that it’s been almost a week since he’s been in a fight. It hasn’t been that long between landing punches in a long, long time.

He doesn’t tell BAM this, of course, but he thinks he probably knows what’s going on. Thomas had mood swings before he started and the cocaine only amplified that for him. He doesn’t care, just so long as the periods where he yearns to climb all over BAM, touch him and kiss him and make him better, don’t last long at all.

They talk about God knows what, Thomas always skirting around the edges of the truth. BAM remembers things, piece by piece – his brother’s name is Jack and maybe they don’t get along; he had loved his English class senior year of high school, but he can’t recall just why; there had been a fire in the basement when he was fifteen; his first kiss had been with someone named Skylar.

Thomas tried his best to give back, but his life was dotted with abuse and alcoholism and failure and drugs. He doesn’t mention Philip because of a lot of reasons, because Philip was probably fucking some guy in the Netherlands, away from London and away from Thomas.

They talk about sports and every once in a while BAM will remember watching the playoffs or the finals or cheering alongside the crowd at a game. Thomas mentions books, and BAM recalls reading something about a boy wizard, and Thomas tells him it’s Harry Potter, and BAM’S face splits into a grin as more details filter through.

Thomas doesn’t know what’s stopping him from sucking BAM off. He could, any time he wanted. It’s not because of the bruising (bruising hurts, but it feels _good_ , sometimes, when Philip presses down against it) and it’s not because of Philip – because fuck him, he’ll come home and screw Thomas into the mattress, give him whatever the hell he wants, and then go off again, to Moscow or Berlin or Rome. Every time he starts to think about how nice it would be just to kiss BAM, to touch his face and touch his hands (and that’s it, it stops there, fuck), he goes and gets high and has to deal with it all over again when the yearning period descends.

It’s a week and three days before BAM emerges from the guest room, hair wet from his shower, and announces to Thomas (who is hunched over the kitchen counter, rolled up paper in his hand) that his name is Edward.

-

It’s nearly a week later, and they’re sitting on Edward’s bed having dinner when Edward reaches out and runs a hand through Thomas’ hair. Thomas leans into his touch, eyes slipping closed, and doesn’t make a noise when Edward presses their mouths together.

They kiss quietly and slowly, feeling each other out. Edward tastes like curry spices and Thomas runs his tongue along the healing split on his bottom lip. Edward is wearing one of Thomas’ tee shirts (has been borrowing Thomas’ clothes since that first night, because Thomas couldn’t stand seeing him walk around in blood-stained jeans) and it’s a little bit too broad on him. Thomas takes advantage of the loose neckline to slip his fingers against Edward’s shoulder.

When Edward pulls away to catch his breath, Thomas says, “This is my boyfriend’s flat,” because he’s fucking stupid. Edward looks shocked, then angry, and is moving back to his spot. Thomas hates himself a little bit.

“You didn’t say anything about a boyfriend,” Edward says quietly, face turned down towards his plate. He stabs at his food, twirling his fork around in it.

“He’s not here a lot,” Thomas says. He doesn’t say, he hits me sometimes; he cheats on me, so I cheat on him back; he feeds my drug habits; I love him but I don’t think I know what love is. He doesn’t tell Edward that if he leaves Philip he’d probably die, half because he’d never be able to buy cocaine in London again (in Europe again, fuck, everyone knows Philip) and half because Philip would beat the living shit out of him.

“It’s not okay to cheat on someone just because they’re not there to see you do it,” Edward says.

“He does to me.” The bandages are finally off so the cuts can air out, so Thomas doesn’t miss his slow blink or the frown that brings the points of his mouth down.

“Why don’t you leave?”

Thomas smiled humorlessly. “You don’t know Philip.”

“I have money,” Edward says, and Thomas doesn’t know if he’s remembering or trying to make things right. “I think my dad’s a lawyer or something. If you’re scared, if you think he’s going to hurt you… I can help you, Thomas. Let me help you.”

“You don’t even know your last name,” Thomas says. He knows it’s mean and watches as Edward’s eyes narrow. “You can’t do shit for me.”

“When’s he coming back?"

Thomas’ heart jumps because, “Next week.”

“Fuck.” Edward runs a hand through his hair and cringes a bit when he catches the stitches. “How are you going to explain me?”

Thomas is quiet for a long time, trying to decide. He looks up at Edward and follows the slope of his cheekbones, the sharp tip of his nose, the bow of his mouth. He takes a deep breath.

“Sometimes we bring in kids who are having a hard time,” Thomas says, and Edward’s eyebrows start to go up so he continues, “adjusting to using.”

Edward considers this for a moment. “Using?”

“Cocaine.”

Edward’s face splits into a grin and he starts to laugh. Thomas eyes him reproachfully. “You’re fucking – you’re fucking drug dealers, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” Thomas says. “Philip is.”

“But you – use.” Edward laughs and shakes his head like he just can’t believe his luck. Falling into the lap of London’s cocaine ring. “You – fuck, do you know how dangerous this is? Do you know how dangerous drug life is?”

“Yes,” Thomas retorts, feeling irritated. What the fuck does Edward know?

“I almost got fucking killed for it,” Edward says, and Thomas’ eyebrows shoot upwards. He’s remembering. “My brother fell into it and I was trying to pay his dealers off so they’d stop selling to him. Fuckin’ attacked me. Could’ve killed me, but they got spooked and ran off.”

Thomas thinks back to those boys in the alley – thinks, fuck, if he hadn’t stolen those cigarettes, Edward could be dead. If the owner’s son hadn’t been shouting while he chased Thomas, Edward _would_ be dead.

“You can’t just fuck around with shit like this, Thomas.” The fact that he _cares_ makes Thomas surge forward and kiss him on the mouth, hand curling around the back of his neck. Edward opens his mouth and lets their tongues slide together for a moment before bodily pushing Thomas backwards. “Don’t you dare drag me into this. You’re with a fucking drug dealer. You’re – you’re not _single_.”

“How do you know you are?” he challenges. Edward flinches like he’s been hit.

“That’s different,” he says, but his voice isn’t as loud. “You _know_ you’re being unfaithful.”

“It’s okay that he does it to me?” Thomas wants to kiss him, wants to press against the line of his mouth and take back the words. “It’s okay that he’s jetting off to Paris and Athens and fucking prostitutes? Is it different because I _care_ about you?”

Edward goes to run a hand through his hair again, exasperated, but then thinks better of it and clenches his fists against his thighs instead. Thomas is vaguely aware that it’s time to clean his eyes.

“You can’t do that,” he says quietly. “You’re not going to leave him, so you can’t say things like that.”

Thomas wants to curl into his space, wants to kiss away his frown and make him say the things he doesn’t want Thomas to say. Instead, he gets up off the bed, carries the curry into the kitchen to throw it away, then returns to the bedroom and says, “Come on. It’s time to get washed up.”

-

They’re sitting on the couch the next day watching some sort of nature documentary, the careful distance between them almost tangible. Thomas wants to close it. He wants to wind his arm around Edward and pull him in, press their bodies close. But Edward is quiet and rigid, so Thomas keeps his hands to himself.

They’re quietly discussing what to eat for dinner when there’s the sound of a key scraping in the door. Thomas tenses, mentally running through the list of people who have a key to the flat. He’s half off the couch, headed towards the bedroom and the side table, where there’s a loaded gun.

Then Philip is coming down the hall, singing, “Honey, I’m home!” And fuck, he’s early. They don’t have a plan yet. But Thomas knows this dance: Philip drop his bag and grab Thomas by the sleeve, pressing him against the wall; then they’ll stumble back towards the bedroom, hands everywhere and Thomas never saying, “I missed you.”

But Thomas isn’t where he’s supposed to be, isn’t prepared to distract, so when Philip makes it into the living room, he has time to see Edward. His smile falls just a fraction and he turns to Thomas, the grin frozen on his face.

“Who’s your friend?” he asks, like he’s caught Thomas with his pants around his ankles. They have this balance to them: fuck whoever you want as long as nobody else sees. But Edward isn’t a prostitute and the way Philip is looking at the both of them makes Thomas want to backtrack a little bit, maybe hide Edward in the guest room before Philip gets through the door.

“This is Bam,” he says. Philip knows people who know people who know people, and there’s no doubt in Thomas’ mind that they’d be able to find him in the blink of an eye. “He got into a fight with some of Napier’s guys – thought I’d help him out a bit. He’s been sleeping most of the time.”

He can practically hear Philip’s thoughts: _helping him out by letting him touch your penis? Been sleeping most of the time – with you? In my bed?_ so Thomas pulls him into a kiss and backs him up, pushing the bag out of his hand and shutting the door behind them.

All he can think about is Edward sitting out there on the couch, alone and angry and unhappy. He doesn’t want him to have to listen to this, but he can’t go out and hide Edward away in the guest room.

He tugs the jacket off of Philip’s shoulders and smooths his hand across his chest. It feels so familiar. He fists a hand in Philip’s hair and tugs a bit, and Philip laughs as their mouths separate.

“Missed me, did you?” he says, and Thomas doesn’t say _I never wanted you to come back_. He shucks his trousers and pants and stands there, letting Philip just look for a moment, and then they’re kissing again, across the bed and across each other.

Philip fucks him into the mattress, pinning his wrists up above his head. He tries to stop thinking that maybe Edward is listening. When he comes, he says Philip’s name.

When they’re done, Philip gets some of their blow out of the bedside counter and makes three straight lines across Thomas’ chest.

Philip wraps himself around Thomas even though it’s too early to be going to sleep. He presses kisses against the back of his shoulders and runs a hand through his hair. Philip doesn’t touch him like that. He starts to wonder if it’s really Edward until Philip nudges his nose under Thomas’ ear and whispers, “I don’t have any more money.”

-

Philip leaves the next morning to take care of some business downtown. Edward emerges shortly after and sits on the couch, like he’s waiting for something. When Thomas comes into the living room, Edward says, “I’ve got a flat. You should come live with me.”

“I can’t just _leave_.” Especially not now. Philip would think he’s leaving because the money’s gone. “Where is it?”

“Come on,” he says, getting up and feeling his way out towards the door. He finds Thomas first and grips his arm, loose enough that he could break free if he wanted to but tight enough that Thomas understands that Edward is serious. “Come with me.”

They take one of Philip’s cars out to Edward’s flat, which is a solid thirty minute drive from Philip’s place. Thomas can see that the houses are getting nicer, more of a white-picket-fence kind of nice rather than I’ve-got-drug-money.

They pull up to a brick building and park in the underground lot, then take the elevator up. Edward uses his muscle memory to find the door, but when they get there, there’s no way to get in.

“Why didn’t I hide a key?” Edward asks. Thomas takes a bobby pin out of his pocket and shimmies the door open before Edward even stops complaining.

“After you,” he says, and smiles back at Edward’s incredulous look.

Thomas shuts the door behind them.

Edward’s flat is smaller than Philip’s, but it’s got a balcony, too, and granite in the kitchens. The living room floor is wood, but Edward has carpet in the bedrooms. His bedspread is deep blue and he has a _Saving Private Ryan_ poster up above his dresser. No space is wasted – there are photographs and books piled up along the walls and it looks so much like a home that Thomas’ breath catches in his chest.

“The walls are white,” Edward says, and for a moment Thomas thinks he can see. “There’s a couch and a telly and a rug, right?”

“Yes.” There’s also a laundry basket sitting on the coffee table, and Thomas rustles through it. He has a pair of Superman boxers and a tee shirt with a zombie version of that famous World War 2 photograph, the one with the soldier kissing the nurse, and Thomas thinks he needs a hit because he’s not supposed to be here.

“I’m homeless,” Thomas says after a while. Edward is poking around, familiarizing himself with his surroundings again. “The flat isn’t even mine. I invested all of my money in Philip’s business and he let me live with him. I have absolutely nothing beyond him.”

"Start over,” Edward says. He looks up, “with me.”

-

Sitting on the couch with Edward back at Philip’s flat, Thomas tries to think of a thousand reasons he shouldn’t go with Edward. He counters them with a thousand reasons he _should_ go with Edward – a thousand reasons he should leave Philip behind and make a new life for himself. It’s tempting to consider all the things he’s missing by not taking the chance; but then he thinks of all of the things he would be missing if he did.

Philip gets back to the flat around six and his mouth draws into a thin line when he sees Edward and Thomas sitting on the couch. He leans against the doorframe between the living room and the hallway and says, “So what? You’re going to leave me now that I’m broke?”

“We both knew this was going to happen one day,” Thomas says tiredly.

Philip laughs coldly. “Sorry, wasn’t clued in on that one. So what do you want? Money? A car? To have that blind shit there as your casual fuck?”

“I don’t want anything more than to go,” Thomas says evenly. “I don’t want you to stand in my way.”

“Of course I’m going to stand in your way,” Philip says with a cruel twist to his mouth. “You think I’m going to let you go that easily? How long do you think you’re going to last out there without a hit? You’ll be crawling back to me in no time.”

“I just want to go.”

“Be my guest,” he says, and steps aside, out of the doorway. He makes a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Feel free to jump from one rich fuck to another. Whoever can feed Thomas Barrow’s nasty little habit is good enough for –“

He doesn’t finish his sentence because Edward punches him in the jaw.

Philip hits the wall and stares for a moment, shocked, as Edward advances on him again. Thomas watches in horror as Edward smashes Philip with his cane, over and over and over with increasing ferocity, until Philip finally gets his head back on straight and ducks out of the way.

Thomas grabs Philip before he can do more than send Edward stumbling and shoves him back.

“Don’t fucking touch him,” Thomas says. Philip straightens out his shirt and winces almost imperceptibly as his hand brushes over what is definitely going to be a bruise. Edward’s cane is lightweight but Thomas doesn’t doubt it can do some damage.

Philip sneers and spits in their direction. “Get the fuck out of my house,” he says. “Get the fuck _out._ ”

Thomas and Edward stumble out of the flat and into the hallway, where they pick up the pace until they reach the elevator. Edward is shaking from the adrenaline and Thomas is shaking because he’s not sure what they’re going to find in the lobby.

There’s nothing waiting for them at the bottom, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from dragging Edward along and hailing the first cab he sees.

-

Thomas gets the shit beat out of him twice by Philip’s cronies. He wonders, as he limps home ( _home_ ) nursing two broken ribs, if they’re going to beat the shit out of Philip when they realize he doesn’t have any leverage anymore.

Relapse is the hardest thing he’s ever done, but Edward keeps whispering to him about new starts and new lives; and anyway, there’s no way in hell anyone’s going to sell to him. Philip is too powerful for that. So he throws up and sweats and swears until it’s all finally out of his system, and then one day he wakes up and doesn’t feel so shitty.

Edward moves quietly around their flat ( _their flat_ ) because he’s that kind of person, someone who keeps to himself and lets Thomas go about his own business without needing to know _who_ and _when_ and _where_. He trusts without question and that scares Thomas more than a little bit.

Edward makes up for it more than tenfold when he curls himself around Thomas, one leg always thrown across his hip, fingers twitching against Thomas’ shoulder as he snuffles against his neck in his sleep. He doesn’t take his socks off, either – Thomas will be on his stomach shouting out encouragements when he’ll feel the cloth against the outside of his thighs, and then he’ll start to laugh because Edward is the only person he’s ever known to keep his socks on while fucking someone.

He smooths his fingers through Thomas’ hair and leaves light kisses along his jaw, and sometimes Thomas thinks back to the night when Philip had held him and told him that the money was all gone, but he doesn’t get scared.

Edward’s refrigerator does not stock itself and his showers are too small for enthusiastic meetings. He doesn’t jet off to Oslo or Monaco at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t hit Thomas or mock his insecurities, but he also doesn’t wake up to turn off his alarm clock in the mornings and he makes Thomas burnt toast for breakfast.

He doesn’t remember things like who he took to senior formal or what his mother’s middle name is or where he stashed his savings money, but he knows things like Thomas’ favorite book and the schedule for Top Gear reruns and that the coffee maker in the kitchen has been broken for the last five years.

Edward still stubs his toe on the doorframe of the bedroom every morning and, judging by the mark there, this isn’t something that has to do with his vision. Thomas still reaches into his boot sometimes for the bag that isn’t there.

So they start over, Thomas learning how to live without being under any kind of influence and Edward learning how to live without being able to see, and they fight and argue and scream at each other, but they also kiss and talk and love.

They find a way through.


End file.
